Downtowns

Their Struggle To Remain Viable

October 09, 1988|By Patricia M. Szymczak.

Downtown isn`t just a place. It`s the feeling you get by being there, that feeling of being in the center of things. It`s where business is done and where people relax over dinner when businesses close.

It`s where you can watch a Fourth of July parade. It`s where you go to buy new clothes. It`s a place where you can find a park bench and people watch while eating ice cream.

Downtowns are in trouble, but some are working their way out of it.

Municipalities winced as town-square retailers buckled in the 1960s and early `70s under pressure from regional shopping malls and strip shopping centers that make shopping easy for the highly mobile.

And while that`s still the case, municipalities all over Du Page County that hold something of their downtowns dear-a sense of identity, a link to the past-are fighting back.

They`re starting by solving a simple marketing problem. They`re finding out what potential customers want that they`re not getting from the competition.

It could be service with a smile. Or maybe it`s unique products not sold in malls by the franchises. Then again it could be excitement, the kind once generated by retail activity that must now be manufactured to draw customers to a retailer`s door.

``Hinsdale has not attempted to compete with the malls. That`s why we`re not a ghost town,`` said Bob Proczko, assistant manager for the village of Hinsdale. In early September, Hinsdale`s central business district had one vacancy and a 2 1/2-page list of merchants wanting to lease space, said Elizabeth Miller, executive secretary of the Hinsdale Chamber of Commerce.

The story is much the same in Naperville and Wheaton, whose downtowns likewise thrive.

``We never went into a period of decline because steps were taken to keep up with the times,`` said Charlie Pajor, community relations coordinator for the city of Naperville. Pajor characterizes downtown`s contribution to the $7.8 million in current retail sales taxes that is returned to the city as

``not insignificant,`` although he said a breakdown isn`t available.

In 1972, the Central Area Naperville Development Organization was formed out of fear of competition from Fox Valley shopping center, and, with a private consultant, laid plans for a new downtown that is still taking form, Pajor said.

Naperville finished the first phase of its Riverwalk 1981, in time for the city`s sesquicentennial. The project, now in a later phase of development, is being tied thematically to new offices across the Du Page River.

Financing of many improvements has come out of Special Service Area taxing districts that fix cost on the merchants who benefit. One of the first SSAs suggested by the Naperville development organization was to fund free parking, Pajor said.

And parking can be a problem. ``We don`t have enough, but there`s no objective way to measure it,`` said Hinsdale`s Miller.

Commuters, shoppers and downtown employees all compete for parking. In Hinsdale, there`s a two-year wait for a commuter space, said Proczko. It`s the case in many municipalities whose commuter station is a focus for the central business district.

``We`re looking at providing more parking, but the problem is there`s no land in the center of town,`` Proczko said of Hinsdale, which has begun studying the idea of building a parking deck. Wheaton has already embraced the concept and plans to build a parking deck on the site of its police station, which plans a move into new quarters.

Wheaton began looking at its downtown in 1983, according to Robert Christ, former president of the Wheaton Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the city`s 11-member Central Area Commission, which disbanded after sending a six-month study of downtown to the City Council this summer.

Among other things, the commission suggested that the city hire an economic development director, proceed with plans for downtown housing to create a captured market for downtown businesses and arrange shuttle service between downtown Wheaton and the county administration offices.

Wheaton budgeted $1.2 million for construction downtown in fiscal year 1988-89 and expects to spend about $3 million more during the next three years, said City Manager Donald Rose.

In fiscal year 1987-88, the city spent $1.3 million completing its Front Street project. The project included a parkway and fountain to create an esthetically pleasing boundary along the railroad tracks, which cut the central business district in half.

``We have a railroad instead of a river,`` Christ said, likening the Front Street development to Naperville`s Riverwalk. ``It puts a visual block against the railroad tracks,`` said Wheaton architect Michael Thomas Williams, the fountain`s designer, of Williams/Pollock/Associates Ltd.

``I wanted to offer something that would catch the eye,`` Williams said,

``something that instead of driving through town, would make you say let`s stop and buy a little ice cream.``